West Kootenay property assessments show stable market

If you own property in the West Kootenay, chances are its value has gone up in the last year.

BC Assessment has released its valuation of homes across the province based on what was happening in the real estate market as of July 1 last year.

“The majority of residential home owners within the region can expect an increase compared to last year’s assessment,” said deputy assessor Ramaish Shah on Tuesday. “The demand for housing in our resort communities has been even stronger and that is reflected in this year’s assessments.”

Most property values in the Nelson, Castlegar, Trail, and Rossland areas have gone up between 10 and 18 per cent.

“The values we’re seeing represent a stable market,” said Shah. “Even value increases of 10 to 15 per cent are really a stable change in property values, and that’s the theme of our [Kootenay-Columbia] region — fairly stable values. Not dramatic swings one way or another.”

Three communities in the West Kootenay— Nelson, Rossland, and New Denver — saw the highest average increases in single-family residential property, at 18 per cent. Trail single-family properties increased an average of 15 per cent. Grand Forks, Warfield and Nakusp posted 13 per cent gains.

Single-family residential homes in Castlegar continue to reflect a lower increase at 11 per cent. The village of Slocan saw the lowest increase at four per cent.

Here are the average increases for single-family homes in the West Kootenay communities:

City of Castlegar: $285,000 to $316,000 (+11%)

City of Grand Forks: $229,000 to $259,000 (+13%)

City of Greenwood: $136,000 to $148,000 (+9%)

City of Nelson: $391,000 to $462,000 (+18%)

City of Rossland: $286,000 to $338,000 (+18%)

City of Trail: $175,000 to $201,000 (+15%)

Village of Fruitvale: $253,000 to $283,000 (+12%)

Village of Kaslo: $229,000 to $260,000 (+14%)

Village of Midway: $197,000 to $228,000 (+16%)

Village of Montrose: $234,000 to $270,000 (+15%)

Village of Nakusp: $221,000 to $249,000 (+13%)

Village of New Denver: $181,000 to $214,000 (+18%)

Village of Salmo: $189,000 to $199,000 (+5%)

Village of Silverton: $219,000 to $252,000 (+15%)

Village of Slocan: $168,000 to $174,000 (+4%)

Village of Warfield: $196,000 to $221,000 (13%)

While the numbers reflect single-homes, the assessors also found values rising for strata residential properties (0-10 per cent), commercial properties and light industrial (5-20 per cent).

In Nelson, townhomes rose in assessed value by 22 per cent. But Shah said the listed increase — from $318,000 to $388,000 — reflects a small market.

“The story in Nelson is there’s not very many properties listed for sale this year and there hasn’t been for the last two or three years. It’s been a very small pool of houses for sale. But now there’s some building and purchasing townhomes.”

Most expensive homes

The BC Assessment website also lists some of the most expensive homes in the region.

You’ll find most of the high-end properties in the East Kootenays, around resort towns like Invermere, Fernie and Revelstoke. But Nelson has a property or two in the Top 100 list.

The most expensive property is one near Kokanee Creek, at $2.823 million dollars. Another near Procter is assessed at $1.963 million. A Grand Forks property rounds out the Top 100 at the bottom spot, at $1.957 million.

Not making the Top 100 are the most expensive properties in Trail ($864,000), Castlegar ($749,000) and Rossland ($1,038,000).

Overall, the Kootenay-Columbia region’s total assessments increased from about $40.8 billion in 2018 to more than $43.6 billion this year.

A total of about $453 million worth of the region’s updated assessments is from new construction, subdivisions and rezoning. BC Assessment’s Kootenay-Columbia region covers the southeast portion of the province from Fernie to Grand Forks and from Revelstoke to Cranbrook.

All B.C. property owners will receive their annual property assessment notices in early January.

In December, BC Assessment provided notification letters to property owners whose assessments are increasing significantly more than the average.

Castlegar properties went up about 11 per cent last year. (Betsy Kline/Castlegar News)